Viji's feat will have considerable influence on others

TWO DECADES ago whenever Bhagyashree Thipsay returned home after playing a chess tournament in the South, she had to encounter strange looks from people at her town Sangli in Maharashtra. ``A girl travelling such long distances just to play in chess tournaments?'' they would wonder, raising their eyebrows.

Eyebrows in Sangli are no longer given such exercises at the sight of female chess players, and people willingly let their daughters go anywhere to play chess, yes, just to play chess. You could find such parents not only in the Maharashtra town, which has produced two International Masters in Bhagyashree and Swati Ghate, but in all parts of the country. For they know that there is a future for Indian women's chess. If some of them were a bit sceptical at some point of time, they should no longer be so after what happened at Hotel Taj Residency in Hyderabad on July 24. Twenty six years after the first National women's championship was held in Bangalore, India produced a Woman Grandmaster - a 21-year-old girl from Chennai, S. Vijayalakshmi.

Her triumph is not just a personal one. It is also a big step forward for women's chess in India. ``I am glad she has done it. It was a shame that we did not have a Woman Grandmaster all these years'' says Swati Ghate, the Pune-based International Woman Master who has in the last few years given some stiff competition to Vijayalakshmi.

Nisha Mohota, who became an IWM at 14, is also delighted at Viji's achievement. ``She has done all of us proud. It is a great honour for the country,'' says the slightly built, cheerful girl from Calcutta.

As Swati said it was time India had at least one WGM. From what was a family affair of the three talented daughters of Neelakant Khadilkar - Jayashree, Vasanthi and Rohini - for over a decade, Indian women's chess has come a long way. The two Russian coaches, who have coached promising Indian girls in the last two years, have said that India would be a force to reckon with in the not too distant future. The last three years have seen three World titles for India's female players in age-group competitions.

The Khadikar sisters dominated the game in the initial stages. One of them won the title for the first ten years of the National championship, with Rohini - the youngest and the most talented of the sisters - alone winning five. In 1985, at Nagpur, for the first time, a girl outside the Khadilkar family took home the National women's champion's trophy - the 23-year-old Bhagyashree Sathe (her maiden name). And two years later in Calcutta, N. Saritha of Tamil Nadu took that trophy, for the first time, out of Maharashtra. The game was slowly and surely spreading across the country.

Now there is a Koneru Humpy, twice World champion though she is only 13 and Asia's youngest IWM, in Vijayawada and in Delhi there is a Tania Sachdev, who won the bronze in the World under-12 championship two years ago (Humpy won that event).

``Yes, the game has changed a lot, and it is always getting better,'' says Bhagyashree. ``Unlike the earlier years, now the parents are encouraging their daughters to play chess.''

Viji's feat is a shot in the arm for Indian women's chess. ``She will inspire more girls to take up the game,'' says Saheli Dhar Barua, who has already earned a WGM norm.

``By becoming a WGM she has also inspired many players like me. Now that she has done it, we would also want to follow her. It is always difficult to break a barrier; so Viji has made things easier for her,'' says Nisha.

All India Chess Federation secretary P. T. Ummer Koya feels Viji's success is a good advertisement for the women's game in India. ``She received very good coverage from media, and that is bound to attract more girls to chess. It was heartening to find chess as lead story in the sports pages of our newspapers,'' he says.

The media indeed was quick to applaud Viji. National news magazines profiled her, and she was interviewed on television too. It was not just Viji who was getting noticed, but the game as well. ``The media attention could really help our cause,'' says Pallavi. ``I think, and wish, some sponsors may have also taken note of that.''

Of course, these girls could do with some sponsorships. Except for the lap-top computer presented to her by The Sportstar a few years ago, India's best female chess player ever, Viji, hardly received any help. Things have improved a lot now, with Aarthie Ramaswamy, Koneru Humpy and Tania Sachdev finding sponsors, but there are many talented girls who would have done far better in their career with financial assistance.

Women players still struggle to get jobs, a lot more than their male counterparts do. Safira Shanaz, an international from Tamil Nadu, has a degree in electronics engineering, but is jobless. ``I would like to have a job that will give me time to play chess also. But I don't see any coming my way,'' she says.

Viji was given an out-of-turn opportunity to play at the Hyderabad GM tournament, and the AICF deserves a pat on its back for that. She finished fourth, ahead of several men, Grandmasters included, to justify the faith the federation had on her. ``If she hadn't lived up to our expectations, it would have been difficult for us to take such bold steps in the future,'' Ummer Koya says.

The women players are asking for more. ``We would like to have a few closed WGM tournaments in India,'' say the players almost in unison. The AICF secretary assures them that they will be given opportunities.

Now if India has to conduct a WGM tournament, not all the WGMs have to come from abroad. There is one living at K. K. Nagar in Chennai. She will surely be alone for a while, like Viswanathan Anand, another Chennaite, was, before Dibyendu Barua, Pravin Thipsay, and more recently, Abhijit Kunte and Krishnan Sasikiran too became Grandmasters.

One day Viji too will have company. And that day is not very far.

P. K. AJITH KUMAR

Kozhikode

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Humpy holds Emms
Next     : Time to concentrate more on Tests